by Efi Nisiforou

Interaction is a major factor affecting the learning effectiveness of an online programme. Offering accessible, appealing, and interactive courses that will increase student engagement and satisfaction is vital to the success of each student. To help make this process easier, instructors can use this easy-to-follow roadmap to offer high-quality learning experiences for their students.

Various educational tech tools were employed to support interactivity in the online teaching environment. First and foremost, the course material is presented interactively with the aid of digital tools and apps. Articulate Storyline 3 was used to design and develop interactive presentations. Following a self-paced study mode, students “visit” each topic’s interactive presentations/lessons. Every presentation/lesson consists of subunits with relevant material to be studied (the material is organised into subunits to help students categorise perceived information). At the beginning of each presentation, a menu page shows the titles of the specific subunits. These titles on the menu page are clickable tabs that students can access. Every time they complete a subunit consisting of text-based, audiovisual material and, in some cases, activities such as live polls (e.g., with the ahaslides tool), an indication of completion appears on the menu page. Once all the subunits are completed, a short quiz is enabled for them to test their understanding of the specific material (self-assessment method). The tool allows students to stop and return whenever they wish, continuing from that specific point and the checklists help them be aware of their progress. This way, they can study at their own pace and time while being autonomous and organising their homework. Alternatively, a lesson was taught through an educational video with the support of Edpuzzle. Through the tool, the instructor can track student comprehension as it allows the option to embed multiple-choice and open-ended questions at any point in a video.

The format of the previous lessons is user-friendly, guiding students accordingly, and everything is embedded in the LMS. The same content is also available in a printable PDF version on the LMS for learners to download for study purposes.

The weekly activities (formative assessment) focus on exercises that demand problem-solving, critical thinking, and practical and cooperative skills, among others. For discussion-based brainstorming activities, padlet and lino tools have been used, along with the forum, to enhance student creativity and engagement. These tools allow learners to participate asynchronously and synchronously to express, share, and summarise ideas and opinions. Padlet

For activities that demand the application of practical skills/knowledge (e.g., creating a VR scenario), students can share their creations (e.g., an infographic/mindmap created), and we incorporated the database Moodle tool to fulfil this purpose. Wiki tool has been used to co-create a database where students share educational tech tools, enhancing knowledge co-creation. Additionally, learners are asked to provide peer-review and feedback for a team project, and the tool tricider enables this interaction. Apart from the final project, a self-assessment quiz is also present during the last week. In addition, the H5P tool creates a set of questions (multiple-choice, drag and drop, and gap-filling activities) with prompt feedback to guide students toward their revision.

Key takeaways:

• Online courses must be well-organised and include authentic resources, activities, and assessments, divided consistently into smaller, topic-based chunks resembling real-life experiences.
• The objectives need to be communicated while the expected behaviours are known to students.
• The respective workload must be equally distributed across the course spectrum in an environment that balances collaborative and self-paced learning.
• Students must be familiar with the technology, which is also an easy-to-access gate.
• In each case, the online instructor can monitor learners’ responses and progress, assessing them continuously while there are multiple types of interaction, among leaners-educator-technology-content.
• Feedback must be timely given from the lecturer, the tool (preparation of feedback by the tutor in advance) or the other peers, depending on the learning needs to be covered.

While there are tons of available tools, instructors can feel overwhelmed and more demanding than ever before. Thus, a forthcoming article will showcase five digital tools and apps that online instructors can use to accelerate engagement and enhance Interactivity in a digital classroom.

Forthcoming article:

“5TechTools to Make Online Teaching Engaging–

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